About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Southwest Extends Companion Pass, Status-Qualifying Year Through January

Dec 30 2022

With the virtual shutdown of Southwest Airlines for a week, customers weren’t able to fly, and that means they weren’t able to take those last trips that would have earned their status for 2023 or taken advantage of their soon-to-expire companion passes. So Southwest is giving members one extra month to qualify for status and giving members with December 31, 2022-expiring companion passes an extra month (January 2023) to use those companion passes.

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Southwest Passenger Pays $100 To Skip Long Line

Dec 29 2022

There are likely over one million passengers whose flights were cancelled by Southwest Airlines over the holidays. Airline phone systems, and customer service lines at the airport, weren’t made for this.

Lines have been interminable. And that’s true even for passengers whose flights are on time, or at least haven’t been cancelled. Most people are paying for service from their airline with their time. One ingenious mom in Atlanta decided to pay to cut the check-in line with money instead.

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A Top Airline Executive Explains The Southwest Airlines Meltdown

Dec 28 2022

Southwest’s IT systems lag other airlines. Their phone systems can’t handle the load. And recovery from a situation where crew are out of place, where the airline doesn’t always even know where crew are, and where flight schedules and staffing have to be rebuilt manually is not only nearly impossible – it’s made harder by operational know-how with a hole in it coming out of the pandemic.

Add on that a lot of people were paid to retire early in 2020. Southwest hired about 16,000 people in 2022. Nearly 20% of their workforce is brand new this year. A lot of that is flight attendants, and other front line employees. But it’s ops people too.

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U.S. Imposing Covid Test Requirements For Travelers Coming From China, Hong Kong

Dec 28 2022

Now that China is re-opening to travel starting January 8, the U.S. is is imposing testing requirements on arrivals from China, Hong Kong and Macau – effective January 5.

Note that travel and testing requirements have done nothing to protect the U.S. in the first three years of the pandemic. They were didn’t keep out Covid, its surgest, or its variants.

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Police Threaten To Arrest Stranded Southwest Airlines Passengers Waiting In Long Lines

Dec 28 2022

Police threatened to arrest stranded Southwest Airlines passengers if they didn’t leave the gate area. In the video, the officer incorrectly claims that since their flight was cancelled they have no ticket and are therefore “trespassing.” “If your ticket was cancelled, you no longer have a ticket. You understand that, right?”

According to the officer, “Southwest is calling us” so they’re responding to the airline calling the police on their customers. I certainly feel for the overwhelmed employees, but that’s a bad look.

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